Discover Highlights from Design Miami.Paris 2026
From Studio Mameluca’s “Circle of Trust,” on view in Paris for the first time to Elisabetta Cipriani’s miniature versions of her famous Guardian figures
Some fairs have themes, talk programs, and guest curators. But Design Miami.Paris doesn’t need any of that. “If we do have a theme, it is Paris!” says Grela Orihuela, who is the fair’s director and senior vice president. Since its launch four years ago, the fair has taken place in one of the city’s most elegant maisons particulieres, the 18th-century Hotel des Maisons, once home to Karl Lagerfeld, where parquet floors and sweeping staircases fulfill the basic structural requirement for what is known in French as l’Art de Vivre, and we might just call perfection.
To its sublime interiors and extensive garden, Orihuela and team are now bringing a total of 31 galleries, which marks a gradual increase year on year. “You might ask how we manage to do that within the fixed walls of a house,” says Orihuela. “But we just find new spaces. Let’s just say, the Design Miami team doesn’t have an office anymore.” Instead, that room will house fabulous artists’ rugs (think Alexander Calder, Sonia Delaunay, Joan Miró) made by Boccara.
The front courtyard is now in use, where this year visitors will be greeted by Studio Mameluca’s Circle of Trust, on show in Paris for the first time, courtesy of Sorgin Gallery. The individual chairs, arranged in a circular sculpture, is as much an invitation to sit and engage with other guests as a work to be admired.
Meanwhile, first-timers Pulp will be taking over the garage with pieces by the German group Pentagon and Gaetano Pesce. “We’re going to create an aesthetic as far from that of the Hotel as possible,” says Pulp’s 27-year-old co-founder Paul-Louis Betto. “It will be a brilliant orange cube.” Pulp’s preference is for radical, sculptural work, especially from the 1980s. “What drives us is form before function and style before everything,” says Betto. “Interestingly, a lot of our clients are in the fashion business. They like the raw finishes and the experimental ideas.”
Inside the mansion, blue-chip Parisian galleries bring important historical design to the fair. Among them are Maxime Flatry, Downtown, and Mitterrand, who will show, respectively, Robert Mallet-Stevens (a very important suite of furniture); Isamu Noguchi; and the best of the Lalannes.
In the garden, Patrick Seguin will once again install a demountable house by Jean Prouvé. This time, it is fitted out in a Japanese style with tatami mats and futons, showing how a system developed to solve emergency housing issues in postwar France and its colonies is equally adaptable to the tastes of today.
Among the new galleries are Elisabetta Cipriani, presenting special guests Sheila Hicks and Simone Fattal. With both accomplished artists based in Paris, it seems a fitting tribute to the city’s enduring talents. “I started collaborating with Sheila last year, for a presentation of her Cosmic series during the Venice Biennale,” says Cipriani. A complete sell-out, Hicks enjoyed it so much she has made new pieces for Paris, including two necklaces, with a net of silver thread providing a base for colored silks, semi-precious stones and silver shells. It’s a fabulous way to own a piece of her work.
Fattal has created miniature versions of her famous Guardian figures in bronze, called Lady B and Lady M, for the ultimate in wearable sculpture. “It took us five years,” says Cipriani. “The Guardians stand up when they’re not being worn; they are true artworks, just in miniature.”
Another interesting newcomer is Modernity, Andrew Duncanson’s gallery that focuses on the very best of historic Swedish design. Occupying a room on the ground floor—“It’s got blue walls, so I’m thinking it has a rather Gustavian feeling,” says Duncanson of its décor—it will be organized as a complete room set, with a 22-by-12-foot carpet taking the starring role. In graduating shades of blue, it was made to commission in the 1950s for one very large room in a private villa by Margareta Sundbon Eichenholz, a designer who created exclusively bespoke work. A rare floor lamp, designed by Poul Henningsen in 1927, will also be on show, as well as his Akademi chandelier with its three layers of blown opal glass.
Meanwhile, Parisian mainstay Galerie Kreo will return to its usual spot. Look out for new work by London-based trio JAM. Their spectacular “Lamppost” series has been made at the Marseille glass specialists CIRVA, and stands 8 and 11 feet tall. For the full effect, visit Kreo’s gallery nearby in rue Dauphine, where an entire landscape of glass Lampposts subverts the idea of this day-to-day object of urban life.